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Thursday, 17 October 2013

School Strikes....

Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) are walking out today in a row over pensions, pay and working conditions.....

A letter from one father written to his child's school, issuing the
school a £60 fine for a day's strike action has gone viral. The letter
said:

“Thank you for your recent letter informing me of the penalty of £60 if
my child is taken out of school during term time and the impact this has
on pupil’s attainment. “As you have informed me that my child is unable to attend school on
October 17 due to teachers being away from school, I have to take
measures to also issue you a penalty of £60. “If this is not paid within 21 days of the date of this letter, the penalty will increase to £120.” He concluded: “Please make the cheque payable to Mr R Matheson and send to the address at the top of this letter.”

I can understand where he's coming from but teachers do not make the rules about the fines....The government do!! It
is the government that the teachers are striking against. Therefore
this argument hardly makes sense...

The
thing is my girls are not affected by the strikes today.....There are two teachers staying
in the school to teach....The Year two and Year six teachers....So a
normal day for my girls at school while the rest of the kids are off
school.....

That is the only thing that annoys me about the situation!!
All the other kids get to stay home and no doubt if I kept my girls off
there would be hell on!! Don't think the school would see the funny side if I said my kids were on strike....lol

The two teachers not striking are new to the
school and teaching so I'm guessing they are not in the Union.....

Our children are so lucky to have a free education from the age of three until they are 18....Kids and parents in other countries would give their right arm to have a
strong education for their children...

3 comments
:

I see your point about the irony of the £60 but I see his too, as that legislation has so recently come out, that when parents have to arrange childcare for the day, or take annual leave or unpaid leave it must burn a little, especially when people will now pay through the earth for holidays in holiday time where they used to be able to get a little flexibility with authorised absence which many parents took advantage of. I can see both sides of this argument despite having a pre-schooler who the strike did not effect (his Children's Centre and his NEF hours were open for business today) x

I have to say I agree with the teachers right to strike (especially when they tried everything else before that) and I also agree that kids shouldn't be off school during term-time, for a few reasons (every parent takes his kids out on different days, usually for more than one day, etc). I come from a country where strikes take more than one day, where they happen almost every year, where the education is much worse, so I think you are right - we are lucky here that our kids get free education from the age of 3 to 18. Where I come from doesn't.(Hope your girls enjoyed their day at school)

As you say, we are incredibly lucky to have a free education in this country.....we would Do well to remember that when we are all consistently moaning about teachers! Although unions do make the decisions on this, the teachers can ultimately decide not to, I know the ones in our school did, although they have previously....